Film Review: "Le Week-End" (2013).

"Nick & Meg are returning to Paris for a second honeymoon... and a last chance." Prepare for Le Week-End. This British-French drama film directed by Roger Michell, and written by Hanif Kureishi. The film follows a British couple who return to Paris many years after their honeymoon to rejuvenate their marriage.

In 2005, Michell and Kureishi developed the story and script after a weekend trip to Montmatre, Paris.

The film stars Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan, Jeff Goldblum, and Olly Alexander. Broadbent and Duncan, who have a wider range than we sometimes realize, finds the human core of this couple and presents it tenderly. As adorable as Broadbent and Duncan may be, the ride feels low-rent, and the experience doesn't measure up to seeing Goldblum playing... basically himself. Goldbulm's screen presence is normally always welcome, however this time he is a victim, like the rest of the cast, of weak characterisation that never really delivers.

Though bolstered by thoroughly charming performances by Broadbent and Duncan in the lead roles, Le Week-End is a romantic comedy drama that lets down both its audience and its subject. The slapdash manner in which the film is assembled is genuinely shocking, It's simply prevailing idiocy. The film may have the look of a prestige picture, but it plays more like a version of a couple's romance and life as told by your boring grandparents, focusing on boring details and ignoring the interesting implications of the events depicted. The film insists on an unearned sentimentality and nostalgia about a situation and a period that is never fully evoked or explored. A frustrating, wasted opportunity, destined to remain in the shadow of Michell's other more worthwhile cinematic efforts. The film simply fizzles out a romantic effort and as a character study of two personages rekindling their dreary marriage that has potentially life-shaping consequences. A languid, tedious effort that never bothers to get to the heart of its characters, the film is a shallow reading of a significant narrative told mostly from the viewpoint of lifeless characters. Presenting two parallel narratives about the importance of love and fraternity, the film does a remarkable job of taking neither narrative strands particularly seriously. It seems there is no end of things to cringe at in this mess of a movie. Jeremy Sams' mildly piquant score and the mannered characterizations would suggest, making this piece of awards bait more shameless than most. The film is all setting, nothing but Parisian backdrops, and absolutely nothing to say. It's a real snore. The possibilities are endless, but none of them are explored with any depth herein. A tedious affair about a tedious affair. Even though it's uneven and ultimately underwhelming, there's plenty to admire and enjoy here nonetheless. The film has a particular kind of merit. It conveys something of a transparent experience, suggesting that the power of the subject escapes the attempt to contain it in a film and makes its way directly—albeit incidentally or even accidentally—to the viewer. 

Simon says Le Week-End receives:

Also, see my review for Hyde Park on Hudson.